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Women of the pleasure quarters: a Japanese painted screen

29 August – 3 November 2013
Free, Room 3

The Asahi Shimbun Display

This beautiful large-scale painted screen evokes
the world of pleasure and entertainment created for men in Japan of
the Edo period (1600-1868). During this time almost every aspect of
daily life was regulated by a military government promoting duty
and hard work, but the ‘floating world’ (ukiyo) of the
brothel and theatre districts presented a more seductive message –
surrender to the pleasures of the moment.

The message of the ‘floating world’ became a central theme of
city life and culture, particularly during the relatively liberal
1780s, when the screen was painted. Combining evidence from popular
prints and specialised guidebooks, this exhibition offers insights
into the culture, etiquette, and sexual economy of the so-called
‘pleasure quarters’ (yūkaku) of the period. The screen
depicts five high-ranking courtesans (oiran), or female
sex workers, seated on a red carpet and accompanied by four pairs
of ‘trainees’ (shinzō) dressed in matching robes with long
hanging sleeves. The women are presenting themselves to attract
clients in a display room (harimise) at Kado-Tamaya, a
brothel within Yoshiwara – the most famous brothel district of Edo
(modern-day Tokyo). Their faces are idealised, rather than
portraits, and are done in the style of Utagawa Toyoharu
(1735–1814), who is thought to be the painter of the screen.

Yoshiwara was designed for the entertainment of bureaucrats and
wealthy merchants seeking to escape the burdens of officialdom and
military regulation. Surrounded by a wall and moat – and locked at
night – the quarter functioned as a city within a city. Its
permanent residents included several thousand courtesans, alongside
many other brothel and teahouse employees, both men and women.
Visitors included men of all ranks, among them soldiers and
officials (samurai), who were required to leave their long
swords at the gate. When the screen was made Yoshiwara was also a
meeting place for Edo’s cultural elite. A girl typically entered
the quarter between the ages of 10 to 15 as a child servant,
usually after being sold by her impoverished family. While the
relatives received a lump sum, the daughter was generally
contracted for ten years. During this time she would receive
training in polite arts, ranging from calligraphy and the
performance of the traditional tea ceremony, to flower arranging
and poetry. Musically, her studies usually focused on the
three-stringed shamisen, the main instrument of the
pleasure quarters. In her mid-teens she would become a trainee sex
worker, joining the courtesans in the display room. Through good
looks, charm and accomplishments, a courtesan could earn a high
reputation, not only within her brothel, but throughout
Yoshiwara.

The most prestigious courtesan names (myōseki) were
handed down to successive well-regarded courtesans. One such was
Komurasaki, who appears in the screen. She is identifiable by the
crane with outstretched wings decorating a small lacquer box,
located near her at the front of the scene. Komurasaki’s bird
emblem is also shown in a picture album, and her name features in a
Yoshiwara guide published in 1783, about the time the screen was
painted. Apart from these few tantalising facts, however, nothing
is known of her personal life. This is generally true for other
famous Yoshiwara courtesans too. In reality, a courtesan’s life
could be fraught with difficulties, such as maintaining a steady
clientele, and physical hardships including malnutrition, venereal
disease and unplanned pregnancy.

Today the art of the ‘floating world’ is known mostly through
woodblock prints and hanging scrolls. This is one of only a few
surviving screens to depict the subject. As a work of art, this
screen offers important insights into the Edo period, one of the
most fascinating and complex periods in Japanese history.

This display will partly coincide with the exhibition,
Shunga: sex and pleasure in Japanese art which opens 3
October in Rooms 90-91

Notes to editors

Opening hours 10.00-17.30 Saturday to Thursday, 10.00-20.30
Fridays.

The Asahi Shimbun Displays are a series of regularly
changing displays which look at objects in new or different ways.
Sometimes the display highlights a well-known item, sometimes it
surprises the audience with extraordinary items from times and
cultures that may not be very familiar. This is also an opportunity
for the Museum to learn how it can improve its larger exhibitions
and permanent gallery displays. These displays have been made
possible by the generous sponsorship of The Asahi Shimbun Company,
who are long standing supporters of the British Museum. With a
circulation of about 8 million for the morning edition alone, The
Asahi Shimbun is the most prestigious newspaper in Japan. The
company also publishes magazines and books, and provides a
substantial information service on the Internet. The Asahi Shimbun
Company has a century long tradition of staging exhibitions in
Japan of art, culture and history from around the world.

In early modern Japan, 1600-1900, thousands of sexually explicit
works of art were produced, known as ‘spring pictures’ (shunga).
This exhibition, the first of its kind in the UK, examines the
often tender, funny, beautiful and undoubtedly accomplished shunga
that were produced by some of the masters of Japanese art,
including Utamaro and Hokusai. The exhibition is drawn from
collections in the UK, Japan, Europe and USA and will feature some
170 works including paintings, sets of prints and illustrated books
with text.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a public programme of
lectures and events.

The international research project has been funded by a generous
grant from the Leverhulme Trust, involving a wide network of more
than thirty scholars worldwide.

The four principal institutional research partners are: The
British Museum; School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS),
University of London; International Research Center for Japanese
Studies (Nichibunken), Kyoto; Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan
University, Kyoto.

In conjunction with the exhibition, British Museum Press will
publish a catalogue with contributions from more than thirty
authors worldwide. Lavishly illustrated, this volume will feature
new research and previously unpublished material from major public
and private collections. Priced £50 (hardback), will be available
from the British Museum Book Shop and online at
britishmuseum.org

Courtesans of the Tamaya House. Detail from
a screen painting attributed to Utagawa Toyoharu (1735–1815).
Japan, late 1770s or early 1780s.